subject: soliciting comments until November 4, 2015 on experimental impact based warnings

NWS is accepting comments beginning Wednesday, April 1, 2015, and continuing through Wednesday, November 4, 2015, on an expansion of its experimental impact based warnings. All 38 NWS central region weather forecast offices (wfos), 19 southern region wfos, 7 eastern region wfos, and 3 western region wfos will issue enhanced convective warnings. A list of participating offices and local points of contact is online at:

http://www.Weather.Gov/media/impacts/ibwcontacts.Pdf.

This is an expansion of the experimental impact based warning demonstration begun in 2014:

http://www.NWS.NOAA.Gov/om/notification/pns14ibw.Txt

Severe Thunderstorm Warning (svr), Tornado Warning (tor) and severe weather statement (svs) products will be stratified into categories distinguishing extreme cases from base convective warnings. Additional enhanced wording will be included to convey information about associated impacts, specific hazards expected, and recommended actions, both within the bullet statements and as part of the tag line codes.

Based on demonstration results, the impact based warnings are being considered for implementation on a National basis.

Please submit comments on the proposed National implementation to:

http://www.Weather.Gov/survey/NWS-survey.Php?Code=ibw

After the experimental period is completed and the comment period closes, NWS will evaluate all comments to determine whether to implement the experimental impact based warnings as operational products.